The present invention generally relates to the molding of loaves of stuffable food material, more particularly to mechanisms and methods that transform stuffable food material into formed and shaped loaves, such transformation taking place within elongated loaf molds which are subjected to a sequence of processing steps including cooking and chilling steps. According to the present invention, an expansion and contraction compensation mechanism is provided which, while it accommodates product expansion during cooking cycle, same also urges a slidably movable plug onto an end of the forming loaf during a chilling cycle. Provision can also be made for facilitating ejection of the formed loaf from the elongated mold.
Systems for continuously making loaf food products within magazines of loaf molds are generally known, for example, from Borsuk et al., U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,948,158 and 4,009,858. In such systems, stuffable food materials are filled into a loaf mold. Typically, a plurality of loaf molds are arranged as a magazine interconnecting vertically aligned and horizontally extending loaf molds, which magazines move through a plurality of processing stations including at least one cooking or heating station and at least one chilling or cooling station, as well as an ejection station for removing the formed loaf products from the molds. While various types of moldable food products may be formed and processed within these types of systems and according to the system of the present invention, they are especially suitable for forming loaf meat products. Such loaf meat products are prepared in a particularly efficient and economical manner with starting materials that are stuffable meat materials including sausage batter, chunk meat, combinations thereof, and the like.
Systems such as those of the Borsuk et al patents incorporate end plug and ratchet take-up mechanisms which interact with the loaf molds in order to accommodate product expansion which is carried out during the cooking cycle or cycles. Further details regarding a plug and ratchet take-up mechanism are illustrated in Orloff et al U.S. Pat. No. 3,982,477. In these types of plug and ratchet take-up mechanisms, provision is made for allowing an end plug to move generally outwardly in order to increase the volume of the loaf mold during cooking. During subsequent cooling, if the plug is not moved in the opposite direction, that is generally inwardly, the end of the loaf thereat will often become damaged or misshapen which can render at least that end portion of the finished and formed loaf unsuitable for subsequent operations such as slicing and packaging into a protective container that is of a generally uniform size and shape. Such damaged loaf product does not slice into a plurality of food product slices having a uniform size, shape and weight.
These types of problems that are associated with molded loaf preparation cycles which include cooking or heating followed by chilling or cooling have been generally recognized, and mechanisms have been provided by virtue of which, after stuffable food material expansion has been accommodated by a generally outwardly directed movement of an end plug, an assembly is provided for applying a generally inwardly directed force in order to squeeze the material during shrinkage, such a squeezing force being applied to the backside of the plug by a hydraulic ram assembly that is activated, typically only once or twice, during cooling. While the timing and extent of movement of the ram assembly can be adjusted by the operator in an effort to have the force applied thereby provide the compensation needed to achieve the desired take-up or inwardly directed pressure, such efforts have limitations because of the need to attempt to estimate the length through which the ram should move and when the movement should be initiated. If the operator's estimates are not correct, compensation for contraction on cooling often is not adequate or precisely timed, with the result that the end of the loaf product is less firm than desirable for subsequent slicing or the like.
In these types of devices, the extent of compensation force that is needed and desired often varies from loaf to loaf, depending primarily upon the precise composition of the stuffable food material within a particular loaf mold and the heat that is applied to and removed from each particular loaf during cooking and chilling thereof. It is to be appreciated that, even when the loaf molds are arranged in magazines, the needed take-up compensation force can vary from magazine to magazine and even from mold to mold within the same magazine. Additionally, these types of take-up compensation mechanisms typically include somewhat bulky external structures such as outside cages which, for a given available floor space, reduce the length of each loaf mold and thereby reduce the amount of stuffable food material that can be formed into a loaf during each cycle.
Heretofore, attempts have been made to utilize flexible liners to encapsulate the food product stuffed within the mold. Generally, gaps develop between the food and the mold, and meat juices or the like accumulate within such gaps and escape from the food product thereby reducing yields and interfering with the formation of a finished product exhibiting desired juiciness. Furthermore, although certain mold release agents have been incorporated into these types of systems in an effort to facilitate ejection of the formed loaves from the apparatus, ejection is not always completely satisfactory, and formed loaves are at times damaged during loaf ejection.
Accordingly, important advantages could be realized in loaf forming systems by improvements which substantially eliminate the aforementioned problems and difficulties. Such are achieved by the present invention which provides expansion and contraction compensation that is carried out substantially automatically and according to the needs of each individual loaf mold during each particular run such that the inside volume of each different mold substantially automatically increases or decreases as needed to the extent that the internal volume of each individual loaf mold is continuously substantially the same as that of the expanding and contracting stuffable food material therewithin. Included in this regard is an expansion and contraction compensation mechanism and method for each individual loaf mold that combines ratchet function and biasing functions in order to accommodate stuffable food material expansion, while the biasing means thereafter generally continuously exerts an inwardly directed force onto an end of the individual loaf mold in order to thereby reduce the volume of that loaf mold while the volume of the loaf therewithin is correspondingly being reduced. Extraction of formed loaves from the loaf molds and retention of desired product juices within the finished product can be facilitated by interposing a flexible liner between the food material and each loaf mold at the time that the food material is stuffed into the loaf mold.
It is accordingly a general object of the present invention to provide an improved system for molding stuffable materials into molded loaves.
Another object of this invention is to provide an improved expansion and contraction compensation assembly for individual loaf molds.
Another object of the present invention is to provide substantially automatic expansion and compression volume compensation during various cycles of a loaf molding operation.
Another object of the present invention is to provide improvements in loaf molding operations that enhance the ability of the device to minimize the chance of loaf damage or the forming of misshapen loaves due to the presence of gaps between the product being molded and the inside surfaces of the mold within which the loaf is being formed.
Another object of this invention is to improve the procedure by which the molded loaves are ejected from the system.
Another object of the present invention is to enhance the product yield of a loaf molding system.
These and other objects, features and advantages of this invention will be clearly understood through a consideration of the following detailed description.